NO MATTER how much uninspiring, inaccurate nonsense Jeremy Corbyn spouts about Scotland, the man is strangely mesmerising. This mild-mannered troublemaker managed to upset the best laid plans of stolid Labour conference organisers and shadow ministers this week – maybe innocently but probably wilfully.
Boldly going where other UK political leaders fear to tread yesterday, he said he would not push the nuclear button as Prime Minister under any circumstances.
A short interlude of utter mayhem ensued.
Shadow Defence Secretary Maria Eagle said the words were “not helpful” – meaning she was furious – while shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn said Corbyn should abide by the party’s decision to renew Trident and was promptly voted off the party’s ruling National Executive Committee (NEC). Were the two events connected – who knows?
Meanwhile the great and good were rolling up to express their outrage and disbelief to broadcasters. Former Labour shadow minister John Woodcock (exactly – I’ve no idea either) said the comments “would actually make the grotesque horror of a nuclear holocaust more likely, not less” – though as ever he was not pressed to explain the logic of that rather bizarre claim – and Paul Kenny, the GMB’s general secretary, said JC would have to toe the party line on renewing Trident or resign.
The Telegraph gleefully concluded that Corbyn “has put himself on a collision course with his own Labour Shadow Cabinet.” Not bad for a morning’s work.
Rarely has one person – even Alex Salmond or Nicola Sturgeon – provoked such establishment wrath. But JC walked calmly through the storm – as has become his wont.
Defending his position to the BBC later in the day, Corbyn upped the ante, observing that nuclear weapons “didn’t do the USA much good on 9/11.”
Although that’s true, use of the Twin Towers in Britain’s nuclear debate will seem tactless to Americans and could queer the pitch should Prime Minister Corbyn ever try to have a “special relationship” with his opposite number in the White House. Was that a deliberate snub – since the Labour leader has no intention of becoming an American poodle in foreign policy – or accidental? Once again, who knows?
Finally, Corbyn was asked to explain the point of having a defence policy debate and review if he had already decided the outcome.
The unruffled Corbyn replied: “The point of a policy debate is to try and bring people with me.” It’s fair to say that’s probably not how most party members view the process. And if the Trident debate can be so effectively trumped by Corbyn’s veto, what’s the point of any other policy reviews? Once again – no-one can be sure.
Did JC consider the implications of his statement about not using Trident?
On the one hand, it has sabotaged his careful efforts to include Trident supporters in key shadow cabinet positions.
On the other hand, maybe this is what he means by creative leadership? Perhaps the big clue was in the Keir Hardie quote Corbyn used at the end of his leaders speech: “My work has consisted of trying to stir up a divine discontent with wrong.”
Corbyn chose to drop the words immediately preceding Hardie’s quote: “I am an agitator.” Yet he obviously is.
One can only imagine what the right-wing press will do with this latest furore. Having accused Corbyn of being unpatriotic for failing to sing the national anthem and endangering British security for opposing Trident, Labour’s Lord of Misrule has now gone one step further. Even if Labour opts to back the renewal of Trident, Prime Minister Corbyn would simply decline to use it. Whaurs yer collegiate, consensual decision-making noo?
Of course for anyone who opposes nuclear weapons, Corbyn’s stubborn stand is simply good news. It’s ignited debate over the value and logic of Britain’s nuclear deterrent in a way Nicola Sturgeon could never do – after all, her finger will never be hovering over the nuclear button in Number 10.
Yet his manner suggests Corbyn may have no intention of getting there either.
Like Puck, the mischievous elf in Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, the new Labour leader runs amok through his party’s conventions, rulebooks, procedures and policies – a whirlwind of disruptive energy in some cripplingly managerial corridors of power. If he manages to spring-clean Labour and develop or even force a clear left-wing direction on the party, his work may well be complete. Doubtless, a more disciplined, telegenic candidate will be groomed over the next few years to take that reshaped party and contest the next General Election.
Corbyn has already one achievement in that difficult leftward journey – yesterday, amidst all the rows over Trident, a majority of Corbynistas was elected to the ruling NEC – so the changes to rules favoured by Corbyn now look possible and if they change, even bigger policy shifts are likely.
Meanwhile Russia is bombing Syria, the US is bombing Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia is bombing Yemen and Britain’s nuclear submarines patrol endlessly but deter none of the major threats to world or national stability.
In the words of Shakespeare’s disruptive hero; Lord, what fools these mortals be!
Wee Ginger Dug: No direction 'home'
The National View: Corbyn’s right on Trident ... but will his party ever agree?
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